


i’ve got issues (you’ve got them too)

by nowweareunstoppable



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Don't worry, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Multi, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Regret, Self-Worth Issues, Team Bonding, Team as Family, all of the rangers have their own problems, all the angst is soothed, fucked up kiddos that's what they are
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-10-26 19:52:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10793601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowweareunstoppable/pseuds/nowweareunstoppable
Summary: Each of the new Rangers have their own problems to wrestle with. Good thing none of them have to fight alone.(An exploration hurt/comfort fic for each of them.)





	1. i. Trini (sleep deprivation)

Sleep was so close she could taste it. If Trini reached out her fingertips, she would brush against the soft edges of unconsciousness but, like always, a sudden surge of panic jolted her up out of that near bliss and she launched forward into a crouch. Her room was empty and her window was locked but the paranoia stuck to her like a burr. 

Trini leapt off the bed and spun in a tight circle, trying to figure out what woke her up and who was in her room. Except there was nobody there, just like the last three times she’d checked because it was true, nobody _was_ there. Trini knew it was all in her head but what if? What if Rita was back? What if it was some other alien? ‘Others will come,’ echoed around her head and Trini dropped to her knees to peer under her bed. Nothing.

Or what if what had woken her was a noise in some other part of the house? She could hear way better now, maybe somebody or something was creeping down the hallway and the slight scrape of their footsteps had– no. There was nobody in her house. This was getting ridiculous. Trini held herself still, tense, and tried to will herself to climb back into bed, but she couldn’t. 

Because, what if.

Her footsteps were silent as she stepped into the hallway but her heart was thundering so loud it muffled her hearing back to nearly normal human status. Trini squeezed her trembling hands into fists and forced herself into motion. She shouldn’t be scared, she legitimately had super powers, but those powers hadn’t helped her last time a psycho broke into her house and climbed into bed with her. What if this time someone decided going after her family was a better tactic?

The door to her brothers’ bedroom swung open silently but Trini still held her breathe for a second to make sure they didn’t wake up. She had no desire to explain why she was creeping around their room at 3AM.

They were both sleeping soundly and Trini hovered until she counted at least three breaths from each of them and heard no other suspicious noises. She even crouched to peek under their bunk bed before she was satisfied. Knowing there was nobody in their room eased the tight knot in her gut and the relief spurred her onwards into her parents’ bedroom. She did a quick sweep, just enough to make sure, and then took a lap around the downstairs before finally feeling okay enough to climb back under her own covers.

Trini curled into as tight of a ball as she could manage and tried desperately to tempt sleep back to her. But the fear was still there. It sat like a cold stone in the back of her throat and as many times as she tried to swallow it away, it would not go. 

Who knows what would come crawling through her window or busting through the door if she let her guard down. With a defeated sigh, Trini sat up again and flipped her bedside lamp on. The cracks and bare plaster of her walls and ceiling looked ugly in the shadows cast from the lamp. She glared at them and the memories they dredged up but didn’t have the energy to do anything else. Trini hadn’t managed more than few hours sleep in days and it was catching up with her. She couldn’t even be properly angry at this point.

\----------------------

The next day at school was an exercise in self-discipline and Trini was _failing_. The sleep that wouldn’t come last night was clawing at her now, and her eyes were practically rolling back into her head every time she forced her eyelids back open. Kim kept shooting her glances over her shoulder but Trini couldn’t have made eye contact even if she wanted to. Fighting sleep was just as taxing as back to back sessions in the Pit and Trini had no energy for Kim’s questions.

When the bell rang for lunch Trini nearly sobbed in relief. She hadn’t heard a damn thing the teacher said for the last forty-five minutes but at least she hadn’t fallen asleep. Kim was at her side before the last peals of the bell had even faded. 

“Are you okay? You look… not fabulous.”

Trini lifted her arm (it felt like a bag of wet cement) to put a hand on Kim’s shoulder so she could hoist herself to her feet.

“What are you talking about; I’m always-” Trini deflected, then yawned so hard her jaw cracked, “- fabulous.”

Kim frowned, “Come on, Trini. You were tired yesterday, too. You’re going to have to tell me what’s going on eventually.” Trini just shrugged and swung her backpack up over her shoulder. Kim was clearly waiting for her to say something but Trini had spent years perfecting her nonverbal tactics under parental interrogation and she wasn’t about to crack now. 

Kim seemed to realize after a few beats of silence that her efforts were in vain and instead started to steered her towards the lunch room. The hallway was obnoxiously loud and Trini shied away from the overstimulation. Kim eyed her for a moment with a clear ‘what the fuck is going on with you’ eyebrow raise, but instead of asking she just shouldered her way through the crowd and let Trini hang on to the hem of her jacket in her wake, away from the jostling elbows and backpacks of giant gangly high school boys that were way too close to Trini’s eye level for comfort. She resisted the urge to bury her face in between Kim’s shoulder blades. That would probably be weird, right?

As soon as Kim nudged her into a seat next to Jason at their usual lunch table, Trini immediately buried her head in her arms and fell asleep. Rita and company weren’t going to show up here, and even if they did, the other Rangers would help share the burden. The paranoia was smaller at school, quieter. It let up enough so that Trini could relax in a way she couldn’t in her own home.

When Zack poked her awake at the end of the measly twenty-five minutes they got to eat, she somehow felt even worse than she had before. It was like getting a taste of a reprieve only to have it shattered before she could full relax into it.

“You alright, T?” Zack was the one who finally spoke but Billy was also looking at her with his head slightly cocked in a way that meant he wasn’t fully grasping why someone was acting the way they were. She knew if she turned her head that Jason and Kim would also be looking at her with that concerned expression they were both so good at.

Trini scowled at him and said, “Why does everybody keep asking me that?” Well, if nothing else at least her nap had restored her anger reserves. She’d been able to brush away Kim’s earlier probes but now the questions were starting to needle at her. She felt like shoving away from the table and spending the rest of the day hiding in the parking lot, but she also knew that none of them deserved that.

“You’ve never slept during lunch before, so a deviation from your normal behavior might be the reason for everyone’s curiosity,” Billy supplied after a few beats in which it was evident nobody else was going to answer. 

Trini just blinked at him. She wished she’d worn a beanie today so she could tug it down low over her eyes and get away from the stares of her friends. Sometimes, not very often but sometimes, she missed the way her life used to be. Nobody used to even look at her during school much less ask her invasive questions and notice when she was acting off.

Then again, another small part of Trini wished she could ask for help, but there was no way she was going to tell them that she hadn’t slept well in days because she was afraid of a dead alien climbing through her window. Hell, no. She had no desire to attend the pity party that would create. 

Out of all of Trini’s self destructive traits, pride reigned supreme. It was pride that kept her from reaching out after the second time they moved, because she couldn’t get turned away if she never asked to join. Plus, if she never got attached, then nobody had to see her hurting the next time she had to leave. It was pride that sealed her thoughts deep inside, because what would her parents say if they actually knew what Trini was going through? 

She didn’t want to be the perpetual new kid that nobody liked and everybody felt sorry for, that her parents were ashamed of, so instead she became the girl who didn’t want friends. Trini stopped talking to her parents, and then pretty much stopped speaking all together after that. It had been years since Trini had willingly offered up a piece of her to someone.

Until the mine and the power coins and the spaceship. Yet, even after all that, there were still untouched bits inside Trini that had yet to be cracked open.

So, imagining Kim, Billy, Jason and Zack pushing past her walls and actually seeing her? Yeah, that terrified her. What would they say if they saw her scare herself awake night after night and prowl her house in the ghostly morning hours because she was scared of an enemy they already defeated? And if they ever found out that she spent all of last year eating alone under a tree in the courtyard, googling ‘how to know if you’re not straight’ she would gladly throw herself in front of the next train and hope it carried her a few towns over before she fell off. 

The thought of people knowing her, all of her weaknesses and fears and abnormalities, made her skin crawl. Because if someone did see all that and then turned away, Trini didn’t know how she would cope.

And frankly, after spending so much time spent wrapping isolation around herself like armor, Trini wasn’t used to people even trying to give a shit. Right now her head was so heavy and she was so tired that her friends’ attention just felt smothering and abrasive. She knew she was being unreasonable but even on a good day Trini couldn’t be described as having a long fuse, and today was decidedly not a good day.

She really didn’t want to snap at them, but they were all silent and just staring at her, waiting for an explanation and their focus felt so direct that her lips curled up into a snarl before she could stop herself. 

“Just-” Trini forced herself to stop and choke down the sharp words that were straining to be flung out across the table, and it’s hard because what she wanted to say would make them turn away and finally leave her alone but they don’t deserve it, so even though it feels like she’s swallowing the shards of her salvation she does it. Manages to spit out something that won’t make them flinch away from her, “Just leave it alone, okay.” _Stop looking at me fucking stop it I don’t want to talk I don’t have anything to say just leave. me. alone._

Without waiting for responses Trini shoved herself up and joined the crowd of students streaming out of the lunch room. Avoidance; another one of her more rewarding traits. God, how did she even deserve to have friends at this point. Trini ignored the little voice inside her that whispered, _‘maybe you don’t’_ and trudged to her next class. She muscled her way through the rest of the day running purely on spite and by the time the last bell rang, all she wanted to do was curl up on the floor in front of her locker until everyone was gone. 

The logical thing to do would be to walk home and skip training, but the thought of sitting in her room and looking at the patched up walls made her jaw clench. Even though she’d gotten her wish, none of the other Rangers attempted to reach out to her the rest of the day, being alone wasn’t soothing like it usually was. The silence that usually calmed her was just making her twitch instead (or maybe that was the sleep deprivation), and she caught herself checking the group text message more than once before she realized what she was doing.

By the time Jason’s truck rolled up next to her in the parking lot she felt like a caged tiger that didn’t know what it wanted more; to claw its way out and maul the nearest unlucky soul, or to sink its teeth into its own skin until the world stopped being so goddamned loud.

Everyone else was already in the cab and the wary looks that Billy and Kim were shooting her shot a spiral of guilt into the already volatile mix of emotion in her gut. Billy was sitting shotgun and Kim and Zack were in the backseat, already scooting together to make room for her in her usual spot but Trini swung herself up into the bed of the truck instead.

Jason warily poked his head out of the driver’s side window and asked, “Do you want me to drop you off at home?”

Trini narrowed her eyes, and if she was feeling normal she might have gotten some glee over Jason unconsciously swaying backwards away from her glare, but she wasn’t so she just jerked her head no. Jason held her gaze for another second though and she had the uncanny sensation of him actually _seeing_ her. 

If any of them understood sourceless anger, it was Jason. Trini knew about the bull thing, everyone did, but she also knew that it wasn’t the first trouble Jason had gotten himself into for no discernable reason. But she didn’t want to talk to Jason, so she just slid so her back was against the cab and she was facing away from everyone inside the truck. Jason just sighed and put the truck into drive.

\-------------------------

Trini was regretting not going home when she had the chance. A whipping limb of the new hologram tangled between her feet as she tried to dodge away and she didn’t fall, but the stumble gave the monster time to catch her with an open handed strike across her abdomen. The force of it sent her careening into one of the natural rock pillars that dotted the Pit.

The armor and her new superhuman physique meant that it only felt like a solid punch to the gut instead of a bone breaking collision, but a punch to the gut was a punch to the gut and it hurt regardless. Trini felt her teeth slice accidentally into her tongue when she hit the floor and had to let her face shield slide away so she could spit out a mouthful of saliva and blood.

She’d felt like shit when she woke up this morning and at this point Trini was pretty sure she was in the process of actively dying. But, it didn’t stop a little spark of fight that tried to flare up inside of her exhausted body. Her first instinct after getting hurt was to to shut down and throw up her walls, which didn’t tend to work well in a physical fight. So, her next available option was to hit back. Trini lurched to her feet and barreled forward with no finesse other then her raw Ranger strength, and slammed her shoulder into the hologram’s abdomen like one of Jason’s linebackers. 

“Yeah, Trini! Get some!” Zack crowed from his spot next to the others. They were all going one on one with Alpha’s new holograms while the others talked strategy and watched. Apparently Zordon thought that only fighting Putties was ‘setting them up for failure against the countless other species they were bound to encounter’ so he and Alpha were running them through a variety alien species they’d come across in their travels.

Unfortunately, Trini’s alien was some sort of tall slender creature with a multitude of long, tendril-like arms. As she slammed it into a wall, she felt one of the arms wrap around her ankle. She tried to keep her hold, arms around it crushing as hard as she could, but when it yanked she was flying through the air again. This time when Trini hit the floor, she didn’t get a chance to even suck in the air that’d just been forcibly smacked out of her lungs before it was reeling her back in like a helpless fish on a line. 

Billy was on his feet shouting what was probably advice at her but nobody besides her was morphed so she couldn’t hear anyone that well without the communication link that the helmets usually transmitted. Didn’t really matter anyway; Trini was getting her ass handed to her and she was too fucking tired to even get back up onto her feet, much less strategize. 

Too tired to care. That is, until the alien bent over her and wrapped one of those stupid arms around her neck and _tightened_.

Then it was like her mind bottomed out into her chest and everything flickered blank. Trini went rigid. She could feel the dirt of the Pit underneath her heels, but her vision was blurred and all of a sudden she was back in her bedroom. There were hands around her neck and Rita was leering at her. This time she didn’t talk, didn’t even move, she just hovered over Trini with that maniacal gleam and squeezed and squeezed. 

Like a computer that’d shut down and rebooted, all of a sudden Trini burst back into a flurry motion. She couldn’t think of any escape maneuvers, no grapples or holds they’d spent the last week learning, the only thing in her mind was _escape panic can’t breathe she’s killing me I’m going to die can’t breathe oh god oh_

It was probably less than thirty seconds before the other Rangers sprang into action, but Trini felt like she was caught in a lifetime loop of flailing desperation. She was scrambling and bucking uselessly against Rita’s hands when a blur of black cannonballed into Rita and blew apart the wisps of her bedroom like smoke subjected to a strong wind. 

She was back in the Pit and Zack had tackled the hologram off of her. He was sitting on its chest and bringing down blow after heavy blow onto its head, ignoring the tendrils that were wrapping around his arms and legs, trying to pull him off. 

But Trini still couldn’t breathe. She scrambled backwards and tried to pull herself up into a sitting position but something grabbed at her upper arm and she blindly lashed out. Her fist caught something solid and then Jason fell to his knees next to her, winded and clutching his gut. 

“-ini! Trini! It’s okay! It’s okay!” It was Kim’s voice that finally broke through the wooshing in her ears, and only because it was impossibly high and shrill. She sounded terrified.

Trini clawed at her armor, trying to get it off of her, away from her neck and chest because she _couldn’t breathe_ but it wouldn’t come off. The Morphing Grid was like electricity, holding her tight in its current. It could feel her fear, of course, and was just trying to protect her but god damn it she needed her armor off-

“Alpha, turn the hologram off!” Billy cried out. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him yanking Zack by the shoulder up and away from the hologram that was still trying its best to tangle both of the boys in its grasp. 

“Trini, stop, you have to calm down.” Kim was grasping the sides of her face but Trini couldn’t feel it through the armor. Kim’s face was pale and her eyes had a hint of wide desperation in them. Trini was scaring her just as much as she was scaring herself. She pawed weakly at her throat but Kim caught Trini’s hand in her own, immobilizing it.

“Hey, do you know where you are?” Trini tried to turn her head away, only getting in choking little gasps, maybe she could get the visor down, that would help but it wouldn’t go down- then Kim was gripping her jaw and turning her head back towards her, “Trini. Do you know where you are?”

Trini tried to nod but Kim was holding her too tightly so instead she tapped her hand down onto the dirt floor a few times. The Pit, they were in the Pit.

Kim nodded and gave her a wobbly smile, “Good, yeah. Everyone’s here, look Billy and Zack are just over there, they’re fine- and you’re fine, too. Nothing’s hurting you.”

Trini pulled her chin away so she could look around the room and Kim let her. She was telling the truth; they were alone. Alpha must have abruptly shut down the hologram because Zack was collapsed head over heels back on top of Billy like whatever they’d been pulling against had suddenly released. No Rita. She’d never even been in the Pit.

It was all in Trini’s head. 

Jason was kneeling like a sentinel behind Kim, hanging back but with a thunderously worried expression on his face. He looked like he knew there wasn’t anything he could do and didn’t know if he wanted to cry or hit something. Trini could understand that.

Before she could even comprehend what she was doing she reached out for him and he immediately leaned over Kim and grasped her forearm, his grip like an anchor. They sat there like that, Trini hunched forward trying to breathe, her helmet in Kim’s hands with Jason arching over Kim’s back to connect them.

It took a few minutes but eventually Trini realized that she wasn’t in fact choking to death. She sucked in one more big, hiccupping gasp and the tension finally started to seep out of her. She slumped forward so her forehead was resting against Kim’s collarbone. Jason’s breath ruffled the sweaty hairs on the back of her neck while her armor finally flickered away. A wide, warm hand slid across her back and sat solidly between her shoulder blades. Zack.

“You good, Crazy Girl?” His voice was gentle and even though Trini wasn’t very fond of the nickname, she was fond of him so she didn’t shake him off. Hell, she probably didn’t even have the strength to do that at this point. Even thinking about lifting her head off of Kim made her shudder.

The lightest pressure on her knee made her force open her left eye to look. Billy was sitting cross legged and patient next to her. His hands were folded in his lap and his knee was brushing ever so slightly against hers. It was this tiniest show of solidarity that finally started the collapse of the defenses she’d been throwing up all day. Like Billy had toed at exactly the right stone to destabilize the wall and as it crumbled around her Trini finally opened her mouth and let it all tumble out. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch all day,” She mumbled into Kim’s chest. Billy leaned in a little closer so he could hear, “I haven’t really been able to sleep in… days. I can’t. Every time I try I scare myself awake. I have to check my whole house to make sure everyone is okay. I thought that was Rita choking me just now. ‘M hallucinating or something.”

“Are you scared of Rita coming back?” Trini didn’t really know who said it. She was so tired that it could’ve been anyone. Didn’t matter, she would tell them anything if they asked. Holding it in was too hard and she didn’t want to anymore. 

“Yeah. Or something or someone else coming in like she did that night. Hurting me, hurting my brothers or my parents.” Jason’s grip tightened and she clasped his forearm back. This was fucking embarrassing and stupid and she hated talking about stuff like this but she couldn’t stop herself. The vulnerability stung, badly, but drawing her defenses back up over this raw mess of what used to be her feelings sounded just as painful at this point. 

“I’ll hear a noise or trick myself into thinking I did and then if I don’t check I start freaking out. Because what if the one time I don’t check something is there? And someone dies because of me. Again.”

Silence, and then Billy, “Me dying was not your fault.” 

Trini pulled back from Kim and let go of Jason so she could sit back and look at everyone. They all were pulling some pretty miserable faces, and it would have made her laugh if she wasn’t right there with them. There was probably blood smeared somewhere on her face from her bitten tongue and Trini wasn’t sure but she might have cried a little at some point. 

“I think most of me knows that’s true, but then there’s a part that says, she came to _me_. She broke into _my_ house and came into _my_ room and attacked _me_. I was some sort of weak link and that means it can happen again. And that’s why I can’t fall asleep, and that’s why I’ve been so off lately and that’s why I just got my ass kicked by a hologram. Because I’m fucking scared.”

“Why did you wait so long to tell us?” Jason asked. It was probably the softest his voice had ever sounded. Trini hated it. She didn’t want them to coddle her or pity her. This was why she hadn’t said anything before, because now she was the weak link and they felt like they needed to take care of her.

Trini struggled up to her feet and shrugged off Zack’s hand. “Because I didn’t want you all to look at me like you’re doing right now!”

Kim rose with her, in sync like they tended to be more often than not these days. “We’re worried about you! Maybe we could help more if you told us what was going on with you before it got this bad!”

“I don’t need help!” She tried to turn away but the rest of the Rangers stood, blocking her. Billy looked regretful, like he knew this was exactly what she didn’t want, but despite that he stood solid at Jason’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry Trini, but it’s pretty obvious to everyone here that you do,” Kim said. She was getting pissed too and the spark of her burgeoning anger felt good. Better then pity. “You just had a panic attack or something, and I know you’ve been feeling like shit all day so why do you insist on being okay when you’re not?”

That tiger feeling again. Trapped. Lash out or gnaw her own paws off. 

“Because if you guys knew how I really felt you wouldn’t want me anymore! I’m fucking terrified, all the time, and my parents don’t like me anymore and I am not good enough for this! I’m not!” She was yelling but she didn’t care. Might as well rip this off like a band aid. Her vision started listing to the side and exhaustion dragged at her. Trini was barely registering half the words coming out of her mouth.

“I don’t even remember how to have friends because I’ve spent so long trying to avoid this shit. And the funniest thing of all is,” Trini yelped out a near hysterical laugh, “that now that I’m a part of… whatever this is, I don’t want to lose it! But if I talk to you guys about all these problems, then you’ll see that I shouldn’t be here at all and I think that would ruin me.” 

 

Trini stared at the ground, heaving from her outburst. She didn’t want to watch, couldn’t bare to see the realization seep across their faces and how their mouths would twist as they agreed with her that yeah, she was pretty fucked up. That maybe she wasn’t worth the trouble.

“You… think you don’t deserve to be a Ranger?” Zack said slowly. She still didn’t look up.

“I don’t know! I like being a Ranger, it’s not that, but… I don’t know. Once my family started figuring out who I really am, they stopped liking me. I don’t want that to happen again.”

“Where is all this self-hating bullshit coming from?” Zack spat. Jason tried to grab his arm but he tore it away. “No- I’m serious. This isn’t like you at all, and despite what you think, we do know you, Trini. Just because you’ve had some totally legit nightmares about something awful that happened to you, you think you’re weak? Or that because you’re not straight or whatever, and your parents aren’t on board with it, that we feel the same way? Just what kind of people do you think we are?” 

Trini finally looked up. Zack was breathing hard now. The hologram must have gotten in a few hits before it was shut down because a split through his eyebrow was bleeding and he swiped at it with the rough back of his knuckles. His eyes, though, were bright and burning.

“So you’ve been an outcast? So fucking what. You haven’t had friends in awhile? I don’t give a shit. You have friends now, and the fact that you think so low of us, that we’d really reject you because of that stuff, really fucking hurts my feelings,” Zack huffed and his coarse phrasing was so unexpected that a disbelieving gasp of a laugh bubbled up before Trini could stop it.

Zack’s mouth tilted up at the corner and he pointed at her, “Stop laughing, asshole. I’m trying to be serious.”

“Zack’s right, though,” Billy chimed in. “We do know you. I don’t know your family or what’s going on with that but we aren’t them,” he shrugged, “You’re my friend. You may feel weak and afraid sometimes but that doesn’t mean that’s who you are. It’s just something you need help with.”

Jason sighed and dragged his hand down his face. “Billy’s right. Help is good; trying to handle everything on your own is bad. I’ve been there. We all need to talk about all of this. I know you’re not the only one who’s had thoughts like this.”

Kim snorted and tossed her hair, “Definitely not.”

“But not tonight. Everyone needs to get some sleep, especially you Trini. We can sit down and discuss this stuff tomorrow.”

Trini blinked, sort of dumbfounded. Her head was all swimmy and it felt like she was a few hundred pounds heavier then she actually was. “W-wait, that’s it?”

Jason turned back from where he’d started to walk towards the exit, “Yeah? One of us can come with you tonight to make sure everything’s okay and you can sleep and we’ll figure the rest out later.” 

That was seriously it? Nobody was scoffing at her or turning their backs? Jesus, maybe she had built this confrontation up into some unfounded, awful fantasy. She was so fucking tired; she couldn’t even decide if they were acting crazy or if she was. Maybe she had severely underestimated the merits of her friends. Surprisingly, that dawning comprehension stung, too. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone.

Before she could chew on it more, Kim took her by the elbow and started tugging her forward. “I call Trini watch tonight!” 

Trini pawed at Kim’s loose grip, but just for show. She found she didn’t mind the contact. “I don’t need a babysitter,” she grumbled.

Zack just ruffled Trini’s hair, all was seemingly forgiven for now, and then jogged ahead to try and jump on Jason’s back. Jason immediately flung him off and the two started to playfully whack at each other with rough but friendly blows, like lion cubs. A rush of fondness welled up inside Trini. Yeah, she might have underestimated them.

\--------------------------------

By the time Kim crawled through her window that night, Trini was fighting so hard to stay upright that she was actually swaying.

Kim caught her heel on the window sill as she scrambled over it and the jarring knock coupled with the slight adrenaline rush of seeing her friend fall and not being close enough to grab her startled Trini. She went from being three quarters asleep to almost fully conscious while Kim cursed and barely caught herself before she face-planted. 

“I guess grace isn’t one of your super powers, huh?” Trini mumbled. She was slightly embarrassed about Kim seeing her with limp post-shower hair and wrapped up in a blanket cocoon, but after Jason dropped her off she’d used her last reserves of energy to clean up and collapse onto her bed and there was no way she could make any more of an effort. Kim only had to run home and change, but it felt like it had taken her forever and Trini was flagging fast.

“Excuse you, I was a cheerleader for three years. I am the definition of grace,” Kim shot back.

Trini had been sitting up in her bed, but she felt herself slowly sliding down and she did nothing to stop it. Kim’s amused glance let her know she wasn’t fooling anybody.

“Alright, sleepyhead. Scoot over.” Kim brought a pillow with her, pink of course, and a paperback book tucked under her arm.

“You like to read?” Trini wiggled so Kim could slide into bed next to her but the movement sent a damp lock of her hair flopping over her face and she huffed in annoyance. Any other night and she usually would have dried it or braided it back before bed.

“Yep. It’ll help me stay awake longer.” Kim tugged the blanket down from where it had been draped over her head like a hood and gestured to her hair, “May I?”

“Knock yourself out.”

Kim’s lithe fingers started combing through her hair and Trini wanted to make a surly comment about girly sleepover activities but the warm tugging of her hands and the press of Kim up against Trini’s side sent her to sleep so fast it was almost laughable.

The first time Trini jolted herself awake she startled Kim, who was reading her book by the soft yellow light of Trini’s bedside lamp. Trini was sure her eyes were wild as she tried to untangle herself from her blankets and sit up. “Wha- did you hear that?”

Kim wrapped an arm over her shoulders and kept her from getting out of bed, “There was no noise, Trini. I’ve been awake this whole time and nobody is here, I promise.”

Trini panted, unwilling to believe her because she was awake, something must have woken her up. She had to check and make sure- 

“Trini.” Kim’s arms were a vice grip, holding Trini tight to her side. Trini felt frustrated tears prick at her eyes. Was there really nothing there? She didn’t know what to believe, and that was almost the scariest thing. It felt like she was going crazy.

“Do you trust me?” Kim bent over to meet her eyes, her book discarded on the blankets. Her face was sharp and alert, exactly the opposite of how Trini was feeling. Of course she trusted Kim, they were Rangers, they would die for each other – did almost die with each other- and there was no reason she would lie. 

“Y-yeah,” Trini cleared her throat and said louder, “Yes. I do.” 

“Good,” Kim smiled, toothy and unexpected and that was what made Trini finally slump back down. “You’re just overtired, okay? I’m staying awake and I’m watching the window and listening out for the rest of the house. Nothing’s going to get by me.”

Trini nodded once, and then again just to convince herself, “Okay.”

Kim stayed sitting up and leaned back against the headboard while Trini shuffled back under the blankets. She turned on her side so her nose was tucked into Kim’s hipbone and tried to focus on the scent of laundry detergent and that comforting almost non-smell that was Kim’s skin.

The second time Trini tore herself out of sleep, Kim was more prepared. She didn’t even let Trini sit up before she was leaning over and tucking Trini’s forehead up against hers, murmuring, “It’s okay, just your mind playing tricks. I’m right here, everything is fine. You’re safe. Your family is safe.” A repeating mantra that soothed her back into sleep before she was truly able to even wake herself up.

The third time, Kim rolled her over and then laid down next to her. Back to back, their spines lining up. Solid, safe. “I’ve got your back, Trini.” Protected.

After that, she stayed asleep.

The last time Trini woke up it wasn’t jarring or out of fear. It was gradual, like the way it should feel to wake up on a weekend morning at your own pace. Trini blinked lazily at the golden sunlight spilling in underneath her window shades. When she turned her head, Kim was sitting cross legged on the covers next to her, scrolling through her phone. Her hair was wet and she smelled like Trini’s conditioner. She was also wearing a pair of Trini’s sweatpants that ended a few comical inches above her ankles. 

Kim must’ve felt her gaze because she turned and gave her a soft smile when they made eye contact, “Hey there.”

Trini waited for the embarrassment, the sting of vulnerability to kick in, but there was nothing. She just felt… well-rested. “Hey. What time is it?”

Kim let out a little laugh, “Almost 2pm. I showered after your family went somewhere a few hours ago. Your dad checked in on you before they left, I hid under the bed when I heard him coming, but he just let you sleep. Obviously.”

Trini chuckled at the mental image of Kim rolling off the bed in a panic. “Seriously, thank you. Please tell me you slept a little bit?”

Kim yawned, “Yeah, after I made sure you weren’t going to wake up again I got a few hours in.”

Trini opened her mouth but when Kim cut her off, “Don’t you dare say sorry,” she closed it again. Other than apologizing for being a burden and thanking her for staying, nothing else to say immediately came to mind. The trials of being a human hermit for the last few years; when she actually wanted to talk, she blanked.

Kim was uncannily perceptive when the situation called for it, and she changed the subject with a flip of her hair. “Sooo, I think the boys might come over later. Or, I guess I don’t know when your family is coming back so maybe we could all go to my place.”

Trini quirked an eyebrow, “You invited the boys over to my house?”

Kim had the grace to look a little sheepish, “No, well I didn’t mean to at least. I sent them a picture and they sort of invited themselves.”

Trini pushed herself up onto her elbow, “You took a picture? Show it to me.” 

Kim held up her hands, “It’s a really cute pic, promise you won’t be mad!”

Trini lifted her lip in a mock snarl, “I’m not promising you anything, now show me!”

It took a mini scramble of a wrestling session but despite her failings in the Pit yesterday, Trini was usually one of the better grapplers on the team and she was eventually able to force Kim to drop her phone.

“Ow, jeez Trini! I sent it to the group chat you little terror; you have it on your own phone!”

“Oh. Well why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

Trini leaned over Kim to reach her phone where it was plugged in on the nightstand and dropped more of her weight on her than was necessary just to make her wheeze.

When she tapped open the group chat she couldn’t help but snort. Kim must’ve taken the picture before she showered because she had major bed head going on; her flyaway locks were sticking up in the back in a little cowlick. She was throwing up a peace sign and leaning over a completely passed out Trini who was so tangled up in her blanket that the only thing uncovered was the tail of her braid and her gaping mouth. Kim had captioned it, “9.5 hours and counting bitches!” with the ZZzz emoji.

Billy had replied, “Good job Kim!”

Zack just sent a laughing emoji and 6 heart eyes with, “my sleeping beauties!!!”

Jason said, “Tell us when she wakes up and we’ll come over,” with a thumbs up.

Trini rolled onto her back after saving the picture. “Hm. It looks like Jason is going to follow through on having that talk then.”

Kim flopped down next to her and nodded, then started chewing on her lip. With all the time they spent together, Trini was starting to recognize her tells. She poked at Kim’s arm, “What?”

“I just… do you really believe those things you said back at the Pit? About your parents? And that you think we don’t want you?”

Thunk, there came that vulnerability, dropping like a stone in her stomach. Trini could feel herself start to stiffen up and slide the barriers back into place. She swallowed hard and tried to fight against it. Why was this so hard? Her friends proved her wrong yesterday, and she didn’t doubt Kim was going to react just as kindly today, so why did her throat refuse to let her speak?

Reading her again, Kim rolled onto her side to face her and tucked her forehead against Trini’s upper arm. She wasn’t looking at her anymore and it made it easier. Trini took the opening.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t giving you guys enough credit, I realize that now, and I was so tired I don’t even remember half of what I said but… It’s-,” Trini growled, frustrated at her inability to articulate what she wanted to say. Fuck, she didn’t even really know what she wanted to say but she knew she needed to say something. It was time to start talking again, for real this time.

Kim didn’t speak but she tangled her feet with Trini’s on top of the blanket. Her ankle bones bumped against Trini’s while the ceiling fan made slow, loping circles above them. Trini watched the tips of Kim’s bangs float and gust in the soft breeze and sighed.

“My parents kept moving us from town to town. It got harder and harder to force myself to make friends because it hurt so bad to lose them every time we moved. I finally stopped trying. My mom got worried and started digging at me, trying to figure out what was wrong, so I stopped talking. She tried harder, I shut down more.”

Trini gulped, “And by the time there were things about me that I wanted to actually tell her, our relationship was so far gone that it exploded in my face. I think she knows,” Trini nodded to herself, because she’d tried to tell her so many times, “she just doesn’t want to face it.”

“So that sucks, you know? My parents don’t want to know me anymore. They caught a glimpse of who I really am and they don’t want it, don’t want _me_. So I guess I’ve been wearing that like a chip on my shoulder. I didn’t mean to project it onto you guys.” Kim hummed quietly into her arm and Trini took that as encouragement.

“I’m all twisted up inside because it’s pride that keeps me from asking for help, for stuff like this Rita thing, but I don’t want help because I’m so ashamed of how weak I feel sometimes, and I can’t lose you guys. I _can’t_. I’m fully aware it doesn’t make sense, believe me, but I can’t help it.”

Trini exhaled, suddenly bone tired again. That was the best she could do at this point. She hoped it was enough. For what? She wasn’t sure. What she did realize is that she wanted Kim to know her. Because when someone truly knows you and accepts you despite everything, embracing every bit, it means something. And Trini had been without that for far too long.

She was jarred out of her musings by Kim literally rolling on top of her and smushing her in a hug so tight it probably would have broken a normal human.

“Your parents are missing out, dude. You’re my fucking amazing friend and every time you let me see a little bit more of who you are, Trini, it just makes me that much more determined to stick it out so I can see the rest someday.” Her face was sort of pressed into Trini’s neck so her words were muffled, but no less determined because of it.

“You’re loyal and strong and you could fall in love with a girl or a boy or neither or even an alien for all I care. I’m still going to have your back.” 

Kim pulled back enough so that she could look at Trini, “I don’t think you guys really realize what you’ve done for me. I was so lost.” The corner of her lip twitched down and for a moment Trini was afraid she was going to cry, but then she smiled instead. She didn’t say anything else but Trini could read it in her eyes. She knew her tells, after all.

Trini reached up and tangled her fingers in the hair at the nape of Kim’s neck and pulled her back down into her. They just laid there for awhile and enjoyed the slow stretch of the sun across the room and the feeling of each other on their skin.

After a few minutes Trini murmured, “This is a lot of emotions for a Saturday. Plus, you look so ridiculous in my pants I can barely take you seriously.” 

Kim laughed into her neck and the vibrations tickled.

Trini wasn’t looking forward to rehashing everything out again when Jason brought everyone over, but she knew that it would turn into another variation of this, splayed out together under the sun beams and ceiling fans, and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing at all.


	2. ii. Kim (identity)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kim fell easily into step with whoever was walking beside her. It worked for her. But somewhere along the way, she got too good at reading people. Fitting in with them turned into becoming them, and now Kim had no idea if there was anything left of who she really thought she was.

Kim always thought she was just good at getting along with people. She understood the way they worked and was able to shape herself to fill in the gaps of what they expected. In the beginning it was natural; her mom referred to her as her little social butterfly. 

The realization that it was something she could use didn’t come all at once. First, instead of seeing her talent as an attribute, she started using it like a tool. Then as she grew her tool became a weapon. 

Kim didn’t even have a goal in mind. It started out just as assimilation. A certain group of girls always seemed to draw attention like magnets; they flipped their long hair and smiled with glints in their eyes like they knew something she didn’t. She wanted to know. 

Now when Kim traced her history back to the beginning of the mess (the split, the divide, the before and after), she found the root in that simple urge. The wanting. 

Once Kim made the decision to insert herself into that wild pack of lip gloss-covered, shimmering girls, the rest of it fell into place as easily as breathing. Curiosity burned at her until on the first day of sixth grade she simply sidled up to the sharpest of them, the one called Amanda, and said, “Hey. I like your skirt, where’d you get it?” and offered her a stick of gum.

Amanda looked her over and didn’t seem to find her lacking (Kim was never lacking, not when she was after something). She gave Kim a half smile, one that had a feral edge to it even at only twelve years old, and it thrilled something inside of her. It was excitement, or maybe the scent of the challenge. Whatever it was, Kim wanted in. 

In the end, Amanda took the gum and offered her a ride to the mall after school, courtesy of her older brother. Kim didn’t wait for an invitation at lunch, she just slotted herself in at their table, learned names, and flipped her hair like she’d been doing it for years.

Her monthly camping trips with her dad petered out into biyearly, then only on special occasions, and then a few years passed without them going at all. Kim grew into her lanky limbs and clawed her way up Angel Grove’s powder blue cheer pyramid. Family dinners turned into leftovers in the fridge for whenever she decided to roll in the door after practice or the mall or a date. Kim cut her teeth on high school parties and football games and fell in love with the way heads turned when she loped down the hallways, walking point with Amanda at her right shoulder.

It was fun, exactly what Kim hoped for that first time Amanda smiled at her. She loved her friends and the sharp taste of cheap alcohol on the lips of adolescent boys, teetering on the cusp of becoming.

High school utopia couldn’t last forever, though, and the trouble came as sudden as a lightning strike, with Ty and Amanda and the picture. Kim spent years looking the part; glossy hair, perfect makeup and cheer routines down pat. The problem was that she was too good at being a chameleon. Kim integrated, camouflaged and then lost sight of where the edges of her blended into the edges of them.

When the anger frothed up and boiled over and the send button was pressed, Kim was stunned. She hadn’t planned it. She didn’t shape the impulse before it happened. Hell, she hadn’t even realized she was about to do it until it was already over (so fast, the insignificance of the actual act was almost laughable). But the thing that kept circling around her head was the uncertainty about just who sent the picture. Was it the Kim that she’d spent years carefully crafting into the perfect high school type A, or was it her; the real her? 

She couldn’t tell. Had no idea. 

Kim fell easily into step with whoever was walking beside her. It worked for her. But somewhere along the way, she got too good at reading people. Fitting in with them turned into becoming them, and now Kim had no idea if there was anything left of who she really thought she was. 

\--------------------

A text from Zack blinked on her phone and Kim swiped it open before the screen could fade. The picture message made her grin unabashedly as she walked down the sidewalk. 

It was a response to the text inquiring about Trini that she sent when she woke up that morning. Zack replied, ‘only woke up once but it was pretty bad... sitting up helped a lot, thanks for the tip!!!” with a picture of him leaning back upright against Trini’s headboard while Trini reclined against his chest. Her hair was disheveled but her sleeping face was smooth and her hand was only loosely clutching at the hem of Zack’s tshirt. He was pulling a goofy face for the camera but his other hand was slung protectively around Trini and Kim felt warmth bubble up at the sight of them.

To Trini’s great annoyance, it became a tradition whenever one of them spent the night with her to send a picture to the others. Kim saved all of them to her phone. The boys probably did it for her, now that she was thinking about it. Jason insisted they started rotating schedules so that everybody got enough sleep but witnessing just how bad Trini’s sleepless paranoia could get made Kim anxious to be away from her at night. The pictures helped.

Another text from Zack popped up before she could put her phone away, “hey I g2g take care of my mom this morning –needs prescriptions filled. Won’t be in study hall, srry.”

Kim felt her eyebrows pull down into a frown before she could stop them. Zack was the only thing that made study hall even halfway bearable. It was a class she shared with all of the cheerleaders; they’d set up their schedules up that way last summer, sitting on Amanda’s back deck sipping on soda with a dash of whatever wouldn’t be noticed missing from the liquor cabinet, so they would all be together. Now even being in the same hallway as her ex-friends made her skin tighten and prickle until she could barely sit still.

All her doing, of course. There was nobody to blame or hate for making her feel shitty. But it didn’t change the fact that when they stared at her and snarled from across the cheap metal desks it made Kim feel like she was going to puke. The juxtaposition of her memories, filled with smiling faces and suntanned skin and the green of the football field during the lazy hours of the weekdays, and the way Amanda and the rest glowered at her now was too much without Zack’s tempering presence.

Kim scuffed her feet against concrete staircase leading into school. It was too late to call in sick now, but maybe she could fake a headache and spend first hour in the nurse’s office. Or maybe- 

“Kim!” Billy’s call cut off her scheming. She brightened immediately, it was hard not to do that around Billy, and made her way to meet him halfway as he fought his way against the current of the hallway to get to her.

“Hey, Billy, what’s up? Aren’t you going to be late for Precalc?”

Billy waved away her concern, “It’s just a test prep day and I’ve already done both practice tests, so its fine. Mr. Griff doesn’t really care if I don’t show up on those days, though I suppose he’s never actually said so out loud but it’s just a sense I get from him, you know? Also-”

“Billy,” Kim cut him off as gently as she could, a tact she’d learned from Jason, “That’s great. I’m jealous; I wish I could skip study hall.”

Billy blinked at her, “Then why don’t you?”

Kim huffed and opened her mouth to answer before she realized that yeah- Billy was right (like always) and that since she had indefinite detention already there wasn’t much more the school could do if she skipped one class.

“Yeah, okay I guess I could.”

Billy grinned, making her reactively smile back at him, “Good, I was hoping you’d say that. Will you come with me then?” He started back towards the doors without waiting for an answer.

She gave him one anyway, “Of course,” and jogged a few steps to catch up and fall into step with him as he trotted down the stairs and out into the parking lot.

Kim followed him through the cars and across the practice soccer field. The sky was a lazily shifting mass of grey and Billy caught her glancing up at it. 

“Don’t worry, it’s not supposed to storm until tonight,” Billy said. For someone who was unable to quite grasp every social nuance, Billy could be incredibly perceptive. Or maybe he was just able to see right through Kim. If that was true, she wished he’d tell her what exactly he saw. Though sometimes, more and more often after the photo incident, it felt like there wasn’t anything worth seeing, if there was anything at all. In those cases, Kim didn’t really wan tto know.

Billy glanced around when they reached the chain link fence on the edge of school grounds, presumably to check if anyone was close enough to notice them, and upon not seeing anyone he promptly leapt over the fence. Kim followed, clearing it with no problem. Ranger powers definitely came in handy. Especially for delinquent activity, which is apparently what they were doing.

“Zordon probably wouldn’t approve of this,” Kim muttered and Billy chuckled. “No, probably not. But I do think he cares about us more than he lets on, and he wouldn’t want us to be miserable at school if we don’t have to be.” 

Kim wasn’t sure if that was true, Zordon did enjoy rules after all, but Billy literally left the conversation behind and kept walking forward into a slightly wooded area. Kim could tell now where his trajectory was heading and she rolled her eyes because, why not.

“You’re going to make me climb that water tower aren’t you?”

Billy snapped his backpack’s middle strap around his waist and tugged on it to make sure it was secure before giving her a grin so sunny that his eyes crinkled closed and Kim’s heart gave a particularly loving squeeze in her chest.

“You smile like that on purpose, I know you do! It may work on Jason, but not me. I’m immune,” Kim lied with a laugh and an accusatory pointing finger.

“You already skipped class and followed me into the woods; you must only have partial immunity,” Billy offered over his shoulder as he started up the ladder.

“Yeah, well. I’m impulsive,” Kim muttered. She scrambled up after him and for a few minutes they just climbed in silence. They could have scaled it in about 5 seconds flat with Ranger speed, but Billy was taking it slow so Kim followed his lead. It actually felt good to stretch her limbs nice and slowly like a normal human again. She liked the feel of her lungs starting to work harder as she got warmed up.

Kim never took anything slow, and she was telling the truth about being impulsive. Impulsivity was what kick started her into talking to Amanda that fateful day, to flirting with Ty at her first high school party, to so many other things. Her first time kissing a girl was a result of her instigating a game of spin the bottle that was all impulse combined with lunging towards a goal she didn’t even know she had until Hayden Parker was sighing softly into her mouth. 

Her rash nature had been all reward and no regret up until she saw Amanda with Ty that night. It made sense, life was about balance and she was long due to run out of luck. Impulse swung back to bite her in the ass in the form of a picture message. The catalyst of the first great divide of her life; before and after.

Kim was starting to feel out of control. Did she actually mean for that, and all the shit that followed after, to happen? Was she in charge of any facet of her life or was she just getting tossed around in a hurricane of chance and her own bad choices?

She hauled herself up over the edge of the small platform that ran around the top half of the tower and tried to banish the swooping thoughts. Even with superpowers it’d been a long climb and she and Billy both took a moment to catch their breath. Eventually Kim peeled herself up off her stomach and sat instead with her legs dangling over the edge and her arms resting on the railing.

Billy settled himself onto the platform in a cross-legged position and rummaged around in his backpack for some bits of wire and what looked like another lunchbox contraption. After he’d been tinkering for a few minutes without saying anything Kim asked, “Hey Billy, did you need my help with anything?”

“Huh?” Billy looked up, “Oh, no not really.”

Kim leaned back onto her hands, “Okay. Did you just want someone to keep you company?”

“No, I’m fine being on my own.” Kim must’ve made a face because he laughed a little and shrugged, “I just saw you in the hallway looking miserable so I thought maybe coming out here with me would be better than whatever was going on down there.”

“You know what, you’re right. This is way better.” Kim handed him back a screw that clattered out of his pack when he shifted to grab his screwdriver. “So what are you building? Does it have something to do with the spaceship? Or Alpha?”

“Huh? Oh, no nothing to do with alien tech. It’s a battery! Or- at least it’s supposed to be. I’m trying to see if I can build something that can withstand lightning strikes and still gather charge, hence why we’re up here. And uh, no, I’m just building it for fun. Because I like to,” Billy seemed puzzled by her questions and his confusion made Kim frown.

When’s the last time she did something just because she liked to? In the past, there were always ulterior motives. Head to the diner after school with the girls because that was the baseball team’s hangout and Jenny had a crush on the shortstop, or go on the cheerleading trip because she was expected to be there. Go to that party because yeah, it was fun, but if she didn’t show up in the Instagram pictures the next day, people would start to wonder. Even now, was she just a Ranger because some coin and an alien told her to be one?

What _did_ she like to do? Kim stared unfocused out over the school grounds and her hands clenched on the metal railing. Who even was she anymore? 

“Kim are you okay?” Billy asked. He didn’t reach out or touch her, but he leaned into her space and it felt the same as if he had, just in a Billy sort of way.

Kim pursed her lips, unable to come up with an answer. “Uh- I mean- I don’t? I’m not sure.”

Billy waited, but when it became clear that Kim wasn’t able to elaborate he just nodded, “Okay,” and went cautiously back to work. He glanced up to check on her every few moments but Kim just sat rigidly still, holding onto the railing until it creaked under her grip while she tried to figure out just who the fuck she was.

Because somewhere along the way she’d apparently forgotten and wasn’t that the most fucked up thing she’d ever heard. 

It wasn’t that Billy was trying to force her into talking, he was literally doing the opposite, but his patient silence felt thick and Kim curled tighter and tighter in on herself until she couldn’t stand it anymore. 

“God, Billy, I screwed up so bad.” She squeezed her eyes shut and blurted out something that’d been sitting like a stone in her gut for months now, “And I really miss my old friends.”

It wasn’t fair of her to miss them, she had been the one to destroy everything, after all. All of her old friends hated her now, and they were justified in it. Plus, Kim had Trini and Zack and Jason and Billy, the best friends she ever could have asked for. But despite it all, god sometimes she just ached for the way everything used to be.

Billy’s hands stilled and he looked at her with a soft but unwavering gaze, “It’s okay to miss them. They were your friends for a very long time, weren’t they?” 

Kim nodded, but her shame must’ve been obvious because Billy continued, “Hey, it’s okay. I kind of understand; you guys are amazing but I still enjoy hanging out with my other friends. We had lives before the Rangers so it’s not that weird to miss who we used to be.”

“That’s kind of my problem though, actually,” Kim exhaled and tilted her head to the clouds, “Who I was - Amanda and the rest of them aren’t bad people, but they weren’t good for me. Something about me changed when I became friends with them and I’m still not sure what exactly happened but…” Kim sighed. It was hard to put into words and she could see that Billy wasn’t getting it.

She tried again, “Billy, do you think you’re a good person?” 

He gave it some thought but eventually nodded. “Yes, I do.” 

A breeze lifted the strings on Billy’s jacket and Kim envied the relaxed, compact tilt of his shoulders.

“See, I’m missing that certainty. That inner sense of self, or identity or whatever. The way you truly think of yourself, deep inside. I _don’t_ know that I’m good. I have no idea what I am anymore.” 

That was it, the truth of it all. Kim lost herself somewhere along the years. She couldn’t find the line between blending in and becoming anymore. Now that she was stripped of her cheer uniform and the identity she’d spent years building alongside other long-limbed, jagged girls, Kim had no idea who she was. She didn’t want to make the same mistakes with the Rangers.

For the first time in her life, Kim was uncertain. She questioned every decision; was it the real her making it or was it the Kim that betrayed her best friend? Was there even a difference between the two?

A little keening whimper slipped out before Kim could stop it. “I don’t want to be a bad person, but -but I think I am- or I don’t know who I am or what h-happened-”

The wide-eyed look of alarm that flashed across Billy’s face might have been comical in another setting, but instead it just made her start to cry. She scrubbed the tears away with the heel of her palm because she knew she was probably making Billy uncomfortable- like god, the kid just wanted to work on his battery and now she was unloading her existential crisis onto him- but the tears kept leaking out and she couldn’t help it. 

When Billy scooted over to her and wrapped a strong arm around her shoulders, very calculated and deliberate and so Billy, it shocked her so much that she actually did stop crying for a second. It wasn’t that Billy never touched her, it was just that he usually reserved his more tactile moments for Jason. It felt good. He was warm and smelled like the quarry, solid and dusty and a little bit like engine grease.

“Please don’t cry, Kim. I’m probably not the person who’s best equipped to deal with this,” He squeezed her arm and Kim couldn’t help but snort.

“Nah, you’re doing fine Billy, honest. Besides, one time Trini and I were watching that sad movie about the dog and when I started crying she literally got up and left.”

Billy laughed and she could feel it reverberate through where she was pressed into his side, “No way.”

“I’m totally telling the truth! She came back like twenty minutes later and gave me a juice box but so far, yeah, you’re handling it better than her.”

Billy hummed and pulled them both gently away from the railing so they were leaning back against the broad slope of the water tower. The grey metal still held some heat from when the sun had been out that morning and it felt good against Kim’s shoulder blades.

“This is something you’ve been struggling with for awhile?” Billy asked.

Kim nodded, “Yeah. I honestly used to be really happy. Then I sent that picture and all the Ranger stuff went down and everything I thought was solid in my life just… wasn’t.” 

Billy nodded, trying to piece it together in a way that made sense to him, “Okay, so the Amanda situation shook you up, and now you can’t really trust who you thought you were anymore. Is that sort of it?”

“Almost. I always thought there was a degree of separation between who I was with my old friends and who I _really_ was, you know? Because I knew that they weren’t so nice all of the time and their priorities may have been a little cutthroat or shallow depending on the day,” Kim’s voice turned quieter, more thoughtful, “But I grew up with them and they were fun, so as long as I knew I wasn’t exactly the same, deep down, I felt okay to keep being a part of it.”

She sighed, “But now I think that instead of just fitting in with them, I sort of became instead. There was no ‘real me’ that was separate from them. All of sudden I was the worst of all of them and there’s nobody responsible for that except me. And now I have no fucking clue who that ‘me’ is.”

Billy scrubbed a hand over his buzzed hair. He looked a little overwhelmed but his arm was still firmly around Kim’s shoulders. “When my head got too busy, my dad always told me that the way to slow everything down was just to start over and build the problem back from the ground up.”

Kim wished that she knew Billy back when his dad was alive. Instead of trying out for the cheer squad maybe she could have spent evenings at the Cranston house learning about detonation devices and mental health coping techniques. Or what if if she’d chosen to join Zack instead of Amanda all the way back in middle school? Even talking to Jason sooner might have made a difference. Kim closed her eyes and imagined a world in which she’d slid her chair next to Trini’s last year in third period and introduced herself. Who would she be now if she had? 

Kim shook herself out of the ‘what ifs,’ and said, “I’m not sure how to apply that technique to this.”

“Well,” Billy gestured at her, “the problem in this scenario is you, so we’ll just start out simple. Let’s find out who you are.”

Kim narrowed her eyes at him, “Doesn’t sound simple to me.”

“Start over. Build from the ground up,” Billy gave her shoulder one last squeeze and then let go so that he could move and face her, “What’s your name?”

Kim felt unbearable silly but when Billy Cranston looked at you like that, you answered him.

“Kimberly Hart.”

“Cool, cool. Great name. What’s your favorite color, Kim?”

She smiled and opened her mouth to answer but found herself tripping over the answer. Her first instinct was to say the powder blue of Angel Grove, and in the next instance ‘pink’ popped into her mind. Kim slowly closed her mouth without saying anything. She could feel her shoulders start to curl forward again. Was she anything other than a reflective foil of whatever group she was a part of at the time?

“Relax Kim. Just think about it for a second.”

The breeze tickled at the ends of her hair and she gazed out over Billy’s head to watch it ruffle the leaves of the trees. As she did, the sun shone through a break in the clouds and illuminated the trees at the crown of the hill surrounding the valley. It lit up the autumn leaves and Kim felt the tension seep out of her as quickly as it came.

“That gold, right there,” she pointed to the leaves and Billy turned to look. The warm gold dredged up dozens of memories of camping with her dad and watching the sun rise and fall and change everything into a warmer, more vibrant version of itself. The amber leaves had always been her favorite. She’d forgotten.

“There you go.” Billy beamed at her and Kim had to resist the urge to tug him into a hug.

Billy picked his tools and his parts back up and started to twist them together. He shot her a question every now and again, some silly (Chocolate or vanilla? Marvel or DC?) some less so (What’s your favorite thing about yourself? What’s the something that people always misunderstand about you? Do you believe in second chances?). All of them were harder to answer then they probably should have been but Kim put her head down and worked through them. 

When Billy’s wristwatch beeped to signal that it was time to go back to class, Kim felt wrung out, but in a good way. Like she was ready to start filling herself back in again.

There was something wild running deep inside her. Wild and ruthless and it burst out of her when she shared that picture with a flush of impulsiveness she didn’t even know she was capable of. Now that it was out Kim didn’t know what to do with it, but maybe if she treated it as a part of herself she just had to relearn, like everything else Billy asked about, it could be a good thing instead of a dangerous one.

Billy connected his battery contraption to one of the lighting rods snaking down the side of the tower and gave her a thumbs up. Kim started down the ladder first so that she could keep an eye on him. His giant backpack made her nervous; if he overbalanced because of it she needed to be able to snag him before he fell for real. God forbid she be the one to let Billy die again, even if it would be his own fault for making her scale a giant water tower.

They made it down safely and walked the rest of the way back to school in a peaceful silence, but before Kim could pull open the main entrance doors, Billy said, “Just for the record, I do think you’re a good person, Kim. A bad one wouldn’t be as concerned about it as you are. Also, I don’t think someone who’s just good at fitting in with other people would have laid their life on the line like you did for the Rangers and the town. You are good, and if you can’t believe it yet, I’ll believe it for you.”

Billy nodded goodbye and set off down the hall without waiting for her to answer, which was fine because Kim was speechless.

\-------

_What does she even like to do?_ The thought circled through her mind over the next few days, surfacing at the oddest times. Then one cool afternoon during training Zack slipped a fist past her guard and popped her right in the mouth. Kim felt something a little like mania and a lot like wonder thrum up under her skin. Zack eyed her, tracking the drip of blood down her lip, and uncertainly lowered his fists. Kim darted forward to take advantage of the opening and then the fight was underway again. 

Of course she’d sparred and gotten hit before, but all their previous training was under the stressful deadline of Rita’s arrival and it hadn’t been fun like this. Well, maybe the pain wasn’t so fun, she’s not that much of a masochist, but Kim did enjoy the way her focus zeroed in and how she suddenly wasn’t thinking about anything other than the pull of her muscles.

The taste of blood and the wild adrenaline made Kim feel feral, not unlike the first time Amanda gifted her that sharp-toothed smile, but in a way that was flipped on its head. Kim liked fighting; liked the stretch of her muscles and the sharp admonishing pain of making a mistake and getting hit. The hot blood and the bruises made her feel like she had something to show, and instead of being something mean or shameful or bad, this time it was healthy progress.

Kim was starting to realize that she liked cheerleading for some of the same reasons; it gave an outlet to the impulsive energy that would occasionally light up inside her. But it hadn’t been enough, and she’d shared that picture anyway. Maybe this time it could be. 

“Come on,” Kim called, “Again,” and Zack danced back into range, feinting a kick and then following his momentum to twist and smash a fist into Kim’s ribs. He had a goofy grin pulling at the corners of his lips and it made Kim laugh out loud, despite the impact of his attack. She sounded a little crazy but it all felt so _good_ that Kim didn’t care, and she knew Zack didn’t either. Kim landed the next two hits and soon after that their spar devolved into a dusty scuffle on the ground that Jason had to wade into in order to pull them apart.

“Guys, come on. You’re supposed to be practici- biting, Zack, really? Let go of his hair, Kim! Oh for fuck’s sake- Billy would you help me out over here?” Trini hooted on the sideline, cheering for Zack and then switching to Kim seemingly on a whim. Kim started to laugh again and let Jason finally pull her away from Zack and back up onto her feet.

So, in starting to answer to her own question, Kim liked to fight. She liked to beat up her friends and she liked when they tried to hit her back. It felt good when her body was so tired that it made her brain slow down as well. It used to be that she’d get mad and it would build up and build up with no real outlet, but training helped. She felt better now, less like she was buzzing with barely contained electricity all the time.

It wasn’t all figured out yet. Sometimes Kim could almost see who she is, like a thick outline that she was building up piece by piece, but other times it was a swirling shadow that slipped through her fingers when she tried to grasp it. Relearning who you were wasn’t easy, though, and she understood that. Kim could be patient with herself, because it wasn’t just relearning, it was conscious rebuilding everyday into the kind of person she should be, and that took work. 

\-------------

A few nights later it was finally Kim’s turn to head over to Trini’s house. She waited outside until the light in Trini’s parents’ room turned off and then silently leapt up and grabbed her windowsill. 

Trini greeted her with a familiar smile; close-lipped and quirked higher on one side than the other, but that was just a Trini thing. Whenever Kim managed to pull a big open grin out of her, she felt like she was on top of the goddamn world. 

But Trini was sleepy tonight, Kim could already tell, so she probably wouldn’t get one one of those. That was fine though, because when Trini was bundled in her comforter and looking up at her with heavy eyes like that, it made her feel almost as important.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Trini murmured.

“Because you’re cute as fuck,” Kim teased, “Like, you’re the tiniest thing I’ve ever seen. Babies aren’t even as small as you I don’t think.” 

Kim grabbed her pillow and her book from where she had them stashed under Trini’s bed and flopped down next to her. Her weight made the smaller girl bounce and startle and Kim almost felt bad before Trini extracted one hand from her blanket burrito and punched her right in the kidney. Not very hard but still, sympathy revoked.

“I’m not small. Or cute.”

Kim rolled over to face her and gave her another appraisal. Wispy hair half in a braid, pouting, the hint of yellow boxers peeking out from a fold in the blanket… “Nah dude, you’re like grossly adorable. I can barely even look at you.”

Trini busied herself turning off the lights, trying to hide her amusement, but Kim knew anyway.

“Shut up,” Trini laid back down and poked Kim until she sat up higher so she could tuck her nose into the curve of Kim’s hip; a favorite spot of hers for some reason. Kim absentmindedly smoothed her fingers across Trini’s hair, messing up the braid, and started in on her book.

Trini grumbled a little but settled down almost immediately. Kim thought she’d pass out right away, she was sleeping better and harder as time went on, but when she glanced at her a few minutes later Trini was still awake, blinking sleepily up at her. God, the way Trini looked at her sometimes… it made Kim feel like she wanted to run away yet never, ever leave her sight. 

“C’mon, at least try and go to sleep would you? I have to get up early tomorrow.” 

Kim never would have said something like that when she first started sleeping over, but they were comfortable enough in the arrangement now that Trini no longer felt like she was being a burden. She still got embarrassed sometimes, especially if she started crying in her sleep, but Kim and the boys tried their best to not make a big deal of it and it seemed to be working.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re going camping with your dad, I know. It’s all you’ve been talking about for the past week. I didn’t even know you liked camping.”

“Yeah well,” Kim shrugged, “I sort of forgot I did for awhile. I’m relearning what I like. Building from the ground up.”

Trini gave her an odd look and Kim waved it away, “It’s a Billy thing, you had to be there. It helps, though.”

“Good, I’m glad,” Trini eyed her carefully, like she was contemplating saying more, “You have been better lately.”

“What do you mean?”

Trini shrugged into her pillow, “You just seem so sad sometimes. We’ll be hiking or training or something and I see you out of the corner of my eye and you look like…” she sighed, “I don’t know, like you disappear into yourself. You get this really heavy expression. Not as often anymore, though.” 

Kim didn’t realize she’d been doing that, much less that Trini noticed. But really, it made sense. Trini was used to being a watcher instead of a participant. Knowing that she’d been noticing things about her made her stomach do a weird squirmy thing that was uncomfortable but not entirely bad. Huh.

“I do get sad sometimes. I’m having my midlife existential crisis a little early, I guess.”

Trini offered her a sad smile, “I’m sorry. I wish I was better at talking about this stuff.”

Kim couldn’t help herself as she cupped the side of Trini’s face with her palm and stroked her fingers over her jawline. Trini shuddered and her eyes fluttered shut as she leaned into the touch. Everyone thought Trini was the one that needed help, but sometimes Kim was pretty sure these nights were the only thing keeping her together, too.

Her voice was a little watery when she tried to speak, but Kim just cleared her throat and tried again, “It’s okay. You help a lot, believe me. Besides, I actually had a really good talk with Billy about all of it. He gave me some things to think about.”

Trini nodded into her palm, "Billy’s a lot better at feelings then we give him credit for, I think. Better than me, anyway. Is that why he’s been asking you so many weird questions all the time?”

Kim breathed out a little laugh, surprised that she’d noticed (but of course she did). “Yeah. He’s helping me figure myself out. Hence his insistence that I go on this camping trip with Dad.”

“Well, I think Billy’s right about that at least. I’ve never been camping but you’re so damn excited about it it makes me want to give it a shot.”

“No way, how have you not been camping? I’ll bring you with next time.”

Trini huffed out a small, drowsy affirmation and gave Kim a lazy grin that widened enough so that she could see the white of her teeth. Top of the world. Then she turned her face back into Kim’s side and closed her eyes.

Kim truly just wanted to belong. Yeah, maybe she chose the wrong people to belong to in the past, but she desperately hoped that she was on a better trajectory this time. It sure felt like it. 

Her fingers played with the end of Trini’s braid as the stars winked at her through the gap in the curtains. Yeah, Kim was sad sometimes, but not all the time. She closed her eyes and sensed the Morphing Grid hum up softly beneath her skin. She felt the steady presences of Zack and Jason, already asleep, and Billy’s unique signature still gently pulsing away from across the neighborhood. 

Trini didn’t wake up once that night. She even got up a few minutes earlier than Kim the next morning and snapped a picture of Kim asleep with her book over her face and Trini winking in the background to send to the group text. Kim saved that one to her phone, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy, if you made it this far, congratulations on surviving that introspective mess. Figuring out my version of Kim was haaaard. I'm still not sure I actually have all my thoughts in order about this chapter but I wanted to share it anyway. 
> 
> I hope this one wasn't too boring, there definitely wasn't as much actual hurt/comfort as Trini's chapter but I feel like Kim's issues begin and end with her and her alone, so a lot of this had to take place in her head.
> 
> As always, if anyone has any crit/tips on writing Billy, I'd appreciate it because he's up next! 
> 
> ps I'm such a slut for Trimberly (or Kimbini as I like to call it, which is way funnier), I just had to stick some of it in at the end. Hope it didn't detract too much from the focus on Kim!


	3. iii. Billy (disconnect)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not!” Billy burst out and Zack flinched again and he tasted guilt on his tongue but he repeated, “I’m not scared of the water! I’m scared of being left behind! 
> 
> _I’m scared you don’t want me as much as I want you._ That one got stuck in the back of his throat and Billy swallowed it down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long one, folks! Buckle up!

Billy paused for a moment, letting his pen still at the end of a sentence and asked, “What are you afraid of?”

Kim groaned and rolled over onto her back from her spot on the floor of Billy’s basement next to Jason where they’d both been valiantly trying to get their history homework done. Her abrupt movement sent her sharp limbs knocking into Jason’s space. Instead of flinching away or freezing up, Jason just laughed and nudged her arm enough so that it wasn’t covering up his textbook but seemed content to leave the rest of her where it was.

Stuff like this didn’t make sense to Billy most of the time and watching his friends was no different; how did people not care about that? Kim hadn’t asked or given any warning before touching Jason but he didn’t seem to mind at all. Billy frowned from his own spot, perched in his dad’s old recliner at a safe distance above the other two.

“No more questions today, Billy. Please,” Kim begged. He wasn’t so good at that either, knowing when to quit, but he also knew that Kim needed this regardless of what she said.

“Last one.”

He hoped she would answer this one, but she didn’t always, especially when other people were around. Though, Kim did seem to be getting more comfortable as time went on and she only scrubbed her hands over her face for a few seconds before speaking.

“Uhhh, being alone, I guess?”

Billy waited to give her some more time to think about it. The point of all of this was to help her with impulsivity after all, and Kim had a tendency to blurt out the first thing that crossed her mind. Jason was silent while he looked down at his textbook but Billy could tell his eyes weren’t moving over the words anymore so that must mean that he was also listening.

Kim made a little grumbly noise in the back of her throat and it stirred up an urge to smile. She sounded like Trini, who was possibly the surliest person Billy had ever met.

“Honestly though, being alone is probably the biggest one, but more like being left behind. Not having you guys anymore, or anyone. I’m not like Zack or Trini; I don’t do well on my own for long periods of time.”

“Extrovert,” Jason murmured, though he still held up his studying façade and flipped a page over as he said it.

“Funny, people usually refer to it as being needy,” Kim said and prodded Jason’s hip with her toe.

“It’s actually an oversimplified way of classifying social values,” Billy started, “Extroverts are said to draw energy from being around other people while introverts require time alone to recharge. Though in my opinion, it’s not that black and white and there are many ways to think about it…” he happily continued to speak while resuming his essay at the same time.

All of the Rangers were used to his long-winded tendencies at this point and Billy appreciated that Jason nodded along and Kim ‘hmmed’ in all the right parts even though their attention was diverted as they started to shove at each other on the floor. Jason’s playful side was surfacing more often lately and Kim especially seemed to be able to tease it out. It was enjoyable to watch Jason allow himself to relax once in awhile.

Jason had caught Kim’s elbow and tugged her into him so that she was crushed against his chest and the floor until she was howling to be released. Billy glanced up at the stairs, wondering if his mom could hear them and if the inhuman screeching noises would worry her.

“Jason Scott I swear to Zordon if you mess up my fucking hair-”

Billy saw her left arm come up and he opened his mouth to warn Jason but Kim had him twisted into an arm bar before Billy could get a word in. Jason yelped and tapped out and she shoved her toes in his face seemingly for good measure before rolling away from him.

Laughter seemed appropriate in this situation but imagining anyone’s feet brushing his face made Billy’s skin crawl. He tucked his legs tighter underneath him on his chair and leaned subtly away from his friends.

Sometimes Billy felt like a radio that wasn’t quite tuned to the right station. Sure, sound came through most of the time, but it was occasionally punctuated with painful static. The slightest shift of a bent antenna would send his world shuddering and spitting. Or there was the possibility that maybe he had a frayed wire deep inside somewhere, beyond fixing. Thinking about it wasn’t his favorite thing to do.

Part of him wanted so badly to reach out, slide onto the floor and join in their roughhousing, but there was always a possibility that it was going to feel bad. Billy was used to his aversion to unexpected brushes or grabs, and it was always worse with strangers but the thought of it being just as uncomfortable when the people he loved most in the world touched him wasn’t a great one. He didn’t to hurt because of them.

“Billy?”

Billy looked up to see both of them staring at him and realized he must have missed an earlier question. And that his fist was tapping out a staccato beat on the arm of his dad’s chair.

He felt a wisp of concern come from Kim and it roused Trini from across town, which made Zack prickle to life in turn. Billy wasn’t sure if the other Rangers could feel each other as much as he could, he never asked, but they always seemed to respond when he sent a push of reassurance back to them. The links quieted and Kim’s shoulders relaxed.

Maybe it was more subconscious for them, but it was his favorite way of connecting. No hoops to jump through or codes to crack; the Morphing Grid allowed him to just understand in a way that was a bone deep truth, the most he’d ever had. His fist slowed on its own.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that. I’m okay though,” he said. He gave Kim a smile because he liked the way she couldn’t ever seem to help reflecting one back at him. Her hair looked blacker than it usually was against the background of her white teeth and how could anyone stand to have long hair if it was going to get into their mouth like that, honestly.

“Good,” Jason replied, “I think I’m going to head out soon, though. Dad’s boat just got back from a trip and Mom was going to make dinner for everyone.”

“Can I catch a ride?” Kim asked as she haphazardly shoved her school supplies back into her pack.

“Yeah, you going back to yours or to Trini’s?”

Kim chuckled, “Mine. She and Zack are having a ‘bro night’ or whatever they call it.”

Jason laughed too, his eyes shining in a way that made Billy wish desperately that his dad was here so that he could feel what it was like to be with them.

“Do they really not know how sweet they are, for real?”

Kim offered Jason a hand and hauled him up onto his feet. “They think they’re badass, actually. Sitting on a train car drinking cheap gas station beer,” she snorted, “They literally have this quilt stashed out there that Zack’s mom made and they wrap up in it like little burritos and look for shooting stars all night.”

Jason groaned, “Stop, I can’t handle it.”

Kim stretched a hand out to Billy and he considered it for a second before shaking his head and getting up on his own. He ignored the staticky buzz of wanting two opposite things.

 When his mom asks him later that night, “Are you okay, hon?” he’s not sure how to answer.

\-----------------

The next day is a Bad Day; emphasis on the capitalization. Everything was too loud. His mother’s greeting chafed at him as she walked into the kitchen and his hand clenched around his mug of juice a little too tight. The ceramic handle gave way beneath his fingers with a tiny snap and Billy just managed to catch the rest of the mug with his other hand before it fell to the floor.

His eyes snapped to his mom, expecting admonishment, but her gaze was fixed on the mug and her focus was far away. Billy looked at it too, and realized that it had been one of his dad’s favorites. It was powder blue and had a little cloud on the side. His dad used to sit on the front porch with it cradled between his large hands while he waited for Billy to get up in the mornings.

“Mom…” he trailed off before having to swallow to find his voice again, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

She gave him a smile that was more of a sad upturn of her lips than anything and said, “I know you didn’t, it’s alright. We have a lot of Dad’s things. One mug isn’t the end of the world.”

It was true, they did. Items were sprinkled throughout the house; a pair of his boots still sat underneath the coatrack, and his spare pair of glasses lay undisturbed behind the bathroom mirror. Billy took great pains to care for the bushes in the backyard that his dad had planted when Billy was only a few years old, hanging off the sleeve of his dad’s gardening shirt while he tucked them into the ground. It wasn’t really enough, but it was something.

He still felt bad about the mug.

School was exponentially worse. Once he was in class and everyone was settled and moderately still around him it was okay, but the hallways seemed more hellish than usual. Shoulders knocked into him and sleeves and backpacks and even hands brushed into his space. Voices sounded too shrill and whenever a member of the soccer team saw each other they would start crowing about their win last night, over and over again, and the PA system kept screeching with feedback and by the end of the day it was all Billy could do to just keep his head down and move forward. Even when his peers had the grace to finally quiet, the static kept bouncing off the curves inside of his skull. It crawled under his skin and jittered until his whole body itched.

When he could spare the energy to think about it Billy tried to block off his link to the other Rangers so that his irritation didn’t bleed through, but it wasn’t totally working. Zack skipped out completely after third period after snapping at Jason over something Billy didn’t quite catch. Trini must’ve subconsciously sensed the collective mood because she managed to melt into the background, once again becoming the ghost that everyone’s gaze skipped over.

Kim was the most reactive out of all of them. Her signature was always sparking and reaching out, needing, and as Billy’s frustration brushed up against her throughout the day, he could feel the link between them start to shudder and tremble. So when the concussive sound of denting metal echoed down the hallway after the last class of the day, Billy knew it was her.

He turned the corner and saw her facing away from him at the end of the corridor, shoulders heaving in front of a locker door that looked a little more than worse for the wear. Billy started towards her, not really knowing what he was going to say but recognizing Kim’s plea for what it was. But in the next moment his foot skidded on a puddle in front of the hallway’s perpetually leaking water fountain. The beat of panic before he caught himself sent his adrenaline racing and the useless fear stoked his irritation all over again.

Kim was looking at him now with her face twisted up in a snarl but Billy couldn’t bring himself to go any closer to her. Even though it was his anger that was incensing her in the first place, he could still feel it prickling underneath his skin like an unwelcome visitor that didn’t want any more company.

“Uh, guys? What’s the matter?”

Trini’s voice was surprisingly even-keeled and Billy latched onto it to try and rise above the tumult that’d become the link between him and Kim.

“Nothing, it’s just been a shit day,” Kim muttered. She ducked her face until it was smooth before turning to face Trini.

Billy clenched and unclenched his fists, resisting the urge to start stimming, but his left one set up tapping against his thigh anyway. He sucked in a deep breath through his nose and tried to focus on the way that the tension seemed to leave Kim like a gust of wind as Trini stepped forward to place a tentative hand on her forearm. The anger didn’t have strong roots in her and it seemed Trini’s presence was enough to banish it. After all, it was Billy’s issues feeding on her like a parasite, causing her pseudo-upset.

He watched Trini flip Kim’s arm over so that it was palm up and rub a light thumb down the length of her tendons. They tensed, corded and tight, before slackening to disappear completely under the surface Kim’s smooth skin.

“Well, hey, no practice today at least. Let’s go get coffee or something, yeah?”

Billy could literally see the way Kim went loose and soft under Trini’s ministrations and wished desperately that it could be that easy. It made him feel like he was standing on the outside of something. Able to look in but not having the first clue about how to bridge the gap.

“You going to come with, B?” Trini asked tentatively, but he shook his head before she even finished.

“Ah, no. No, I’m sorry not today. I think I’m just going to walk home. It’s pretty nice out, the heat index is way down today and it’s supposed to get even cooler tonight so…” He trailed off, not finding the will to continue.

“Is there anything we can do?” Kim asked. The look in her eyes spoke to her maybe knowing more about the origins of her anger than she was letting on.

He could tell that they were both resisting reaching out for him and he didn’t know it was possible to feel grateful and yearning and guilty all at the same time but apparently that was in fact a thing. Billy shook his head no.

Trini stepped towards him anyway and shot a look at Kim over her shoulder, “Hey can you go make sure Jason doesn’t leave? He promised us a ride.”

Kim nodded, “Yeah I’ll have him drive to the main doors to pick you up. Text me when you get home, okay Billy?”

“I can do that, yeah.”

With a smile and a wave, Kim sauntered off toward the parking lot, her body language a complete 180 from what it had been only a few minutes earlier.

“Hey, uh, so I think I’ll stay at my house tonight. Give it a shot on my own.” Billy turned to look at Trini, who was scuffing the ground lightly with the toe of her shoe. She had sidled up next to him while he’d been distracted watching Kim, but made no move to get any closer.

His brow furrowed, “Are you sure? It’s my night. I’m okay, really.”

Trini shrugged, “You don’t need to be dealing with me if you’re having a rough time.”

“Trini…”

She looked up and flashed him the hint of a crooked grin, “I’m a superhero, aren’t I? I can handle one night on my own.” Sometimes she looked so much like Zack that they could have told Billy they were siblings, contradictory ethnicities aside, and he wouldn’t have found real cause to question it. Those two seemed to be adopting each others’ mannerisms at a rate higher than the rest of the team as they spent more time together.

“Billy, I’m fine. Promise.” At her affirmation, Billy was ashamed to feel his shoulders drop in relief. He usually enjoyed the nights Trini came to his place but right now all he wanted was to be somewhere quiet and alone.

“Okay, if you’re sure. Can you tell Jason I’m walking home so he doesn’t worry?”

“Sure thing. I’ll see you tomorrow for practice,” Trini waved as she followed Kim’s previous path down the hall.

Then Billy was standing alone, with only the slight echo of Trini’s footsteps reverberating back at him. He didn’t really feel any better. In an attempt to quell the rising anxiety, he closed his eyes and cast outward for his teammates. Trini was just rejoining Kim and their signatures expanded like twin bursts of joy. Jason was quiet and steady like he normally was but perked up when Trini and Kim reached him. Zack was humming away from the direction of the mines, not exactly happy but content at least. His friends were okay, that must mean he was okay. It made sense. Billy nodded to himself and started for the door.

The pleasant autumn breeze stirred the leaves during the walk home. Billy tilted his face up into the waning sunlight and let it wash over him, hoping that he would feel better tonight, tomorrow, someday. His mom made spaghetti for dinner, which was in Billy’s top five dinner food rankings. Well, if he was categorizing based on flavor, maybe not in terms of ease of consumption or mess probability. Regardless, it was good and his mom didn’t ask too many questions about school. She even gave him a solid kiss on his forehead before she went to bed that didn’t sting.

But then he couldn’t fall asleep, and he didn’t want to risk waking up his mom to sneak down to the basement to tinker. Sighing, Billy grabbed one of his notebooks and his pack of colored pencils and started to while away the hours, hoping the night had more endurance than his endlessly circling brain.

It was half past 2AM when there was a small rap on the glass pane of his window. He’d been so focused on his diagram that the noise made him jerk and scatter his pencils across the bedspread and the floor. Immediately, the static started up again and Billy scowled before remembering what made him jump in the first place.

Trini was crouched with her toes on the windowsill and her fingers curling around the edge of the shutter. She was pale and trembling and Billy had never felt so guilty in all his life.

He vaulted up, knocking the rest of his pencils to the floor and wishing he didn’t care, and crossed the room to haul the sill up.

“Are you okay? I’m so sorry, you should have come over here, I didn’t mean to make you feel like you shouldn’t- I’m sorr-”

“I’m fine,” She muttered, but the wood of the shutter was starting to creak under her white-knuckled grip so Billy quickly moved to the side and ushered her into his room.

Trini swung inside and landed in a slight crouch with her shoulders up tight around her ears, proverbial hackles raised.

Billy didn’t know if he should push it and ask, or if he should follow the cues that her body language was giving off and just keep his mouth shut. He never knew the right way to do things like this and god did his inability grate at him, but Trini was his friend and she came to him so he felt spurred to say something.

Billy gestured for her to sit down on his bed and started hesitantly, “Trini-”

“I said I’m fine. I am. Okay?” Trini’s voice broke into something smaller and more raw and she turned her face away from him, “Or, I _was_ fine. But it’s windy tonight and the tree outside my window has these stupid branches, and they kept scraping up against the glass and I thought- I kept thinking,” she paused and sucked in a deep breath, “I don’t know. It was starting to get bad again.”

She crawled into his bed and sat with back against his headboard and her knees pulled into her chest. Billy walked around the foot of his bed and sat next to her, mimicking her position. She was so small. He didn’t realize it most of the time because Trini didn’t really act small, but right now as she was curling in on herself, it felt like she was no bigger than a child.

“I’m sorry,” She murmured from where her face was tucked into her crossed arms.

“Why are you sorry?” Billy asked.

He was the one that was sorry. He knew the battles Trini was fighting at night, and he’d promised to be there for her and then he’d let her allow him to take the out she offered up. Connecting with other people was so hard sometimes, like trying to drive his Zord through a pinhole, except half the time he couldn’t even find the pin. It was obvious to him now that he shouldn’t have just let her walk away from him in the hallway; he should’ve insisted that she come by, even for a little bit, but a few hours ago he had no idea that he’d messed up and hindsight never helped anybody.

“I’m saying sorry because I hate acting like this.” Trini wasn’t crying, thank goodness, but even Billy could tell she was upset.

There were a hundred things Billy should probably have said, stuff that Kim or Jason would know just by instinct, like how her reactions were completely valid, and that nobody minded hanging out with her at night, but in the end what came out was completely unplanned.

“I hate how I am sometimes, too.”

Trini stiffened and her hand automatically started to lift towards him, but she jerked to a stop at his flinch. Now Billy was the one who was distressed, and all he could do was hang his head and gesture to himself. _See. I hate this. I don’t it to be like this._

They sat there, looking at each other with crumpling faces, neither one good enough with words to spin just the right phrase to make the other feel better. It’d been easier with Kim up on the water tower, but he hadn’t been feeling bad then, and Kim’s biggest problem was herself. It wasn’t an easy fix, but it was doable. Here, he didn’t even know where to start, with Trini or himself.

Billy opened his mouth and closed it a few times before deciding just to be honest, “I don’t know what to do, or how to make you less scared, or how to… help myself. But I’m glad you came.”

She blinked at him for a moment, her hands twisting the blanket into ridges, before saying, “Being with you guys makes it better. You don’t have to do anything.”

It wasn’t often Trini was so transparent about her feelings. She had always been the hardest for Billy to try and decode, but with the moonlight dancing across her face in patterns formed between the slots of the blinds he felt he was closer to grasping… _something_ than he’d ever been.

As he sat with Trini, shoulder to shoulder but with a safe distance between them, he realized that his head wasn’t buzzing quite as loud as it had been. Maybe being with them could make it better for him, too.

But the weight of the past day settled too heavy for him to even try and put into words any of the things that slunk under his skin and and constantly gnawed on him. He just couldn’t. And Trini didn’t need him dumping anything more on her right now.

Seemingly unperturbed by his silence, Trini leaned over slightly so she could fish around in her pocket. She pulled out her phone and a tangled set of earbuds that she wordlessly handed over to Billy so he could start to unsnarl them. The light of her phone screen was jarring in the previously cool darkness of the room and they both flinched away from it until Trini could thumb the brightness down.

When his eyes adjusted and he looked back to the screen Billy caught a glimpse of something.

“Is that my name? And Jason’s?”

Trini looked up from where she’d been scrolling, “Huh?”

“On your phone, I thought I saw my name. And Jason’s,” Billy patiently repeated.

Even though the screen was dim now, the light coming from it was enough to illuminate the flush across her cheekbones.

“Um, yeah. They’re playlists. I have one for each of you,” She rubbed the back of her neck, and Billy was pretty sure it was a gesture of embarrassment. He held out his hand and made a grabby finger motion that he’d learned from Zack. Trini sighed but obediently passed him the phone.

Billy eagerly tapped his name and scrolled through the unexpectedly large collection of songs under his playlist. It had all his favorites, or at least the ones he’d ever listened to within earshot of Trini. The current top forty from the best country station in Angel Grove, his favorite video game soundtracks, even a few of the older, twangier bluegrass that his dad used to hum under his breath as he worked side by side with Billy in the basement.

He had no clue she’d been paying attention.

Jason’s playlist had a surprising amount of Michael Buble on it, and Zack’s was full of old power rock ballads and, for some reason, a few songs by the Cheetah Girls. Kim’s playlist was the most extensive but Trini barely let him scroll past the first few songs (Halsey was the only name he caught) before she swiped the phone back.

Billy let her take it and said, “These are great, Trini!”

She shrugged, “Yeah well, I was sick of Zack whining about my music all the time so I thought I could keep some stuff that everyone liked on here.”

Billy grinned at her, touched, and Trini quirked a lip up back at him before deftly changing the subject, “You know, this is the first time you’ve smiled all day. It’s been weird seeing you down.”

Now it was Billy’s turn to shrug. “Just a bad day. There’s really no reason why, but it was.” It was the closest he could come to talking about how off he felt sometimes and Trini seemed to sense that because she just nodded and didn’t persist.

They finished untangling the headphones together. Trini tried to give him the phone back so he could choose a song but he shook his head.

“No, let’s listen to your stuff. You use it to meditate right? Maybe it’ll help us fall asleep.”

Trini lifted an eyebrow, “You sure? It’s pretty loud.”

“There must be some reason you play the songs you do.”

“Well, yeah. They’re so noisy that there’s no more room for me to think. Sometimes,” she swiped a tired hand down her face, “I just really need to stop thinking.”

“I know the feeling,” Billy agreed.

So Trini put her playlist on and they both settled back against the headboard to listen. Billy pulled his comforter up over Trini’s knees and ignored the grumbling he got in return.

The music was definitely loud, and Billy was glad he only had one earbud in. But Trini had a point, it did overshadow literally anything else he could possibly think about. The noise got frantic and panicky when he tried to push it away and think around the heavy guitars and drumbeats, but if he just sat back and let it pound in his ears it wasn’t so bad.

His eyes slipped shut and he made a game of trying to pick apart the different beats and instrumental pieces. It wasn’t just noise after all; just like other genres of music, metal had a pattern, and Billy would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy teasing out a good pattern once in awhile.

The night wore itself away as they dozed on and off, but mostly they just sat side by side and tried to outcompete their loud thoughts.

When Billy’s alarm clock woke him up a few hours later, he had a crick in his neck and Trini was gone. There was a sticky note that she must’ve gotten from his backpack stuck to his chest that said simply, “Thanks B.”

\-----------------------

Billy trudged slightly behind the group as they picked their way up the cliffs leading to the ship. He was tired and it was harder than usual to focus on keeping his footing on the loose shale and pebbles.

Nobody else seemed too perturbed by the early hour. Zack was practically dancing his way up the pass, pawing at Jason and then retreating to clown for Trini and Kim when he didn’t rise to the bait.

The circles under her eyes that were just slightly darker than her normal skin tone were the only indicators that Trini hadn’t slept well, but nevertheless Billy hoped the others didn’t notice that he’d failed at his turn.

It was a bright morning, but cool. It was early enough yet that when they passed through sunlit patches Billy could see wisps of his breath. Today should be fine, better than yesterday because there was nothing wrong, but Billy couldn’t shake the feeling of detachment that was starting to take root.

It’s just, he was aching for something and he couldn’t decide what exactly it was that he wanted.

He wanted his friends, but they were right there. He wanted the daylight to stop being so bright and for the wind in the tree branches to stop being so loud, but it was simply a nice day and the sensory overload was all on him. Billy wished he could stop stimming; stop the tapping of his fist but it was the only thing that felt halfway towards making him okay.

His slow pace meant that by the time the others reached the ravine that hid the ship, he was at least a hundred paces behind them. Jason had been glancing back to make sure he was keeping up, but Kim had started telling a story and now his head was thrown back in laughter.

“I swear to god, she growled!”

Trini rolled her eyes, “Whatever. I did not.”

Zack leaned his chin on her shoulder but spoke to Kim, “You’re lucky she didn’t bite you; I think I still have some teeth marks from when I tried to give her a piggy back ride the other day.”

“You’re such a liar, Zack!” She jerked away from him and aimed an elbow towards his gut but Zack manage to skip away unscathed. Billy didn’t think Trini was actually mad but it was hard for him to tell.

“Looks like maybe she’s taking on some of her Saber’s characteristics,” Jason chuckled and Trini threw him a look of betrayal.

“Hilarious, Jason. Actually, you know I did see you struggling to reach the top shelf in the library yesterday, are your arms shortening? Have _you_ bit anyone lately?” Kim interjected, abruptly switching sides to come to Trini’s defense.

“Well now that you mentioned it, your nose does seem to be growing, in fact, I’d say it’s looking sort of long and pointy,” Jason threw back.

Zack broke out into delighted laughter at Kim’s shriek of offense, “Ha! Well, everyone already knows I’ve got a trunk.” He wiggled his hips suggestively, but at this point Billy had absolutely no clue what anyone was talking about.

He was the only one though, because Kim and Jason both stopped bickering to groan at Zack, and Trini retaliated by tackling him over the lip of the cliff. Laughter echoed up from both of them as they splashed down hundreds of feet below.

“Do you really think my nose is big?” Kim asked Jason and he grinned.

“Kim, I have never in my life told a lie, why would I start now?”

Kim scowled at shoved at him until he was forced to grab her arm and tug her into him, and then they both turned and plummeted down into the water, and Billy was alone.

If the detachment was a whisper earlier, now it was a gaping, cavernous hole inside of him.

The water still scared him a little bit. Irrationally of course, because Billy knew he was dead before he even hit the water that night. Whatever Rita did stopped his heart instantly in his chest, but his brain still had a few moments of feeble nerve firing consciousness left when the rope released.

So yeah, the water wasn’t what killed him, but when his last memory was of cold and salt and wet closing over his head so fast he didn’t even have a chance to breath his last breath, yeah it made him a little nervous every time he had to swim down to the ship. Just that initial moment, when the water enveloped him. He was okay after that but it was hard to make himself jump. He absolutely couldn’t do it when nobody was there with him to wait just in case something happened.

They’d been distracted, they were just having fun together, he knew that, but standing up here alone flinching away from the sunlight and feeling like he’d been left behind, it all suddenly boiled up into some sort of breaking point.

The first strangled sob that jerked its way out of his throat surprised him. Billy wasn’t a crier. He felt things, obviously, but tears were usually rare. It was probably the sleep deprivation, he reasoned, or the culmination of the second Bad Day in a row. But as the tears started to fall, instead of trying to stop them and make himself jump down into the water, Billy abruptly turned and made his way back down the cliff, into the tangle of trees and shady forest.

He plunged off of the path and muscled his way through the brush and low hanging branches until he found his way into a small thicket tucked up against two boulders. The sun was blocked by the overlapping leaves, so much so that the light had a slight blue tinge, and the rocks felt cool against his back when he slid down to lean against them. Billy pulled his knees up into his chest, mimicking the position he’d been in last night but now Trini wasn’t here to distract him.

It only took a few minutes for his phone to start ringing in his pocket, but he just reached inside and switched it off. His friends had obviously noticed his absence and were trying to get ahold of him, but honestly he was embarrassed and didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Billy knew that that he couldn’t quite keep up with all the inside jokes and convo riffs that the rest of them juggled between each other with ease. It’d never quite felt as awful as it did today, though. He’d never felt like he was being left behind before.

But maybe the others felt weird around him when he didn’t laugh along, and maybe they were just humoring him at the best of times; letting him tag along because they felt bad.

Disconnected. Outside. Apart. Separate.

Those words scared him worse than the water did.

Billy clamped down on a low, miserable whine. He had to pull himself together, he had to-

“Billy?”

Of all the people he expected to crawl around the edge of his rock pile, Zack wouldn’t have been his first thought. It wasn’t that he and Zack weren’t close, it was just… Zack could be a lot sometimes.

Zack was a tactile person. All of the other Rangers were, even Trini as she became more comfortable with them, but Zack especially. He was always ruffling someone’s hair or jumping on Jason’s back or throwing an arm around Kim’s shoulders. Sometimes Billy could see Zack physically vibrate with restraint when he wanted to reach out to Billy.

Billy loved Zack, but he couldn’t shake an occasional wariness.

He scrubbed at his face with his jacket sleeve, hoping that Zack wouldn’t see and start to tease. But when he glanced up, Zack was crouched a few feet away from him with something frantic in his eyes that Billy didn’t understand.

“Jesus, are you okay man? Everyone’s looking like crazy for you. Jason’s freaking out.”

Worry, that’s what it was. Zack was worried about him.

Billy meant to smile and reassure him, but his mouth went rogue so fast he didn’t have time to wrestle it back into submission. “You left me.”

Zack squeezed his eyes shut, wincing like Billy had taken a swing at him.

“As soon as we all got down to the ship we realized, but you were already gone. We’re so sorry, Billy. I know you’re scared of the water.”

“I’m not!” Billy burst out and Zack flinched again and he tasted guilt on his tongue but he repeated, “I’m not scared of the water! I’m scared of being left behind! I’m scared that that the rest of you are closer to each other than you are to me because I don’t get you at all half the time. I’m scared of being touched and at the same time I’m scared you guys are going to stop trying!”

_I’m scared you don’t want me as much as I want you._ That one got stuck in the back of his throat and Billy swallowed it back down with another sob.

Zack was wide-eyed and speechless in front of him. Absurdly, Billy suddenly realized that this was probably what he looked like that afternoon when Kim started to cry in front of him and he huffed out a watery sigh that could have been a laugh some other time.

“Billy…” Zack whispered. “You’re literally the heart of this team, man, do you not realize that? We love you so godam- sorry go _shdarn_ much.”

Billy just shrugged, feeling a little surly and unwilling to believe him (to let himself hope).

“We were just talking about our Zords earlier, it was stupid, you weren’t missing anything.”

Billy scowled, “I can tell when I’m not getting something, though. If I was oblivious it would be so much easier, but I know. It’s frustrating and embarrassing, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Zack nodded slowly along, seemingly getting where he was coming from and not trying to convince him that ‘no no, you’re doing fine!’ like so many others had done in the past. Billy appreciated it.

 He also realized that Zack was being oddly still. He was usually all movement and noise, but he seemed to be making a strong effort to be calm. It reminded Billy of the way Zack acted around his mom, the few times he’d been around to witness it.

A fresh wave of tears started and suddenly Billy wanted nothing more than to not be so alone. He reached out a quivering hand towards the other boy, need finally overcoming fear.

“I’ve got you, Billy,” Zack murmured and then he was there, his hand clasping strongly around Billy’s forearm, letting Billy latch onto his own in turn. Zack gripped him with confidence and it didn’t feel bad at all. Light brushes and gentle touches always made Billy panicky, but of course Zack was all in right away and the pressure of his grip soothed instead of burned.

Zack gave him a few moments to get his shuddery breathing under control and then he started talking. “I’ve been reading a little bit about, uh, autism and stuff and it said that deep pressure can sometimes help calm people down and help them focus. I don’t know if it’s the same with you but I thought maybe-”

“It’s good, Zack,” Billy interrupted, his voice soft. Zack had been researching for him?

“Okay, that’s good. We could- um, we could try more? If you wanted?”

A few more deep breathes. Zack was here, he wanted to be here with him. He was touching Billy right now and it didn’t feel bad. There was no apart or separate. Just Zack and the trees and the blue shadows.

Billy nodded because he wasn’t sure if he’d say yes if he tried to speak.

“Okay, just say the word if you’re uncomfortable and I’ll stop right away.”

Zack moved slowly Billy and settled behind him. Then he edged forward so his chest was pressed up against Billy’s back and he wrapped his long arms around Billy and held on.

It was a lot. But Billy eventually felt himself relaxing, loosening and after a few minutes he was slumped back against Zack, exhausted but finally content.

“There we go,” Zack said and Billy could feel him smiling into his shoulder. It made him smile too.

“Okay, so hand signals?” Zack asked after being quiet for a whole impressive five minutes, with a hint of his typical boisterousness returning.

“What?”

“You sense you’re not getting the joke, you flash me a little hand signal, boom! I explain, everyone’s on the same page, we all laugh together. Easy peasy.”

Billy chuckled, which made Zack squeeze him tighter.

“Yeah, okay, why not. I like peace signs?”

“Peace sign it is then!”

Then Zack hesitated and asked, “Is it okay if I text the rest of the team and let them know where we are? They really are worried.”

Billy squirmed out of his grip and climbed to his feet. He offered Zack a smile and a hand up, “Just tell them to meet us at the ship. We’re late for practice.”

He opened the link to the Morphing Grid in his mind and sent a push of calm meant to reassure them of his safety down the links to the rest of his friends. Zack’s eyebrows lifted in surprise as the feeling washed over him but he kept his mouth shut with a shrug and a gesture for Billy to walk in front of him.

Zack held him tightly when they jumped down into the water, one hand wrapped around the back of his neck and the other gripping his forearm. The bubbles that flurried around them felt less like terror than usual. When Billy forced his eyes open they looked sort of beautiful, actually. Zack was laughing and the bubbles that came out of his mouth joined the rest in their dance to the surface.

\-------------------

 

When the rest of his friends tumbled out of the watery ceiling they apologized more than Billy thought was humanly possible. But then again, they weren’t exactly human anymore, were they?

Even after Billy told them he was fine a hundred times, Jason still followed him like a protective shadow for the rest of the week. Trini bullied everyone into letting Billy choose the music every time they were all in a car together and Kim and Zack made it their personal mission to get him to laugh at their tactfully explained jokes at least twice a day.

Disconnect, connect. Apart, together. Detached, loved. Billy still didn’t understand how it was possible to feel so much, and for so much of it to be in constant opposition, but the good was starting to win against the bad more and more often. For him, and he suspected for the rest of them, too.

That night, Billy lay on his back in his yard next to the bushes he and his father had planted together.

“Hey Dad, it’s been awhile. Sorry I haven’t been talking to you as much, but I still think about you all the time. I want to tell you about my friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd apologize that this chapter took me so long to write but eh, I am who I am. Plus, even though I feel like I say this every time, Billy was hard. I'm not quite sure I captured the vibe I wanted from his perspective, and if anyone has any issues with how I portrayed him, don't hesitate to mention it.
> 
> I read a lot of differing accounts from people on the spectrum and tried to stitch some of their experiences together into something that resembled the character for Billy I have in my head. I hope I was somewhat successful.
> 
> Zack is next!

**Author's Note:**

> Hahahaha this is what happens when I try to write short one-shots for each character what the fuck is wrong with me.
> 
> Also guess what I realized ((I have a tendency to project onto my favorite charaters, whaaaaat who would have guessed))
> 
> Each Ranger is going to get their own chapter and their own one-on-one session with a fellow Ranger. I feel like this is by far the hardest fandom I've ever written for because I really don't know these characters that well and I'm having to piece together my own character motivations. Which is hard work y'all. 
> 
> Tell me what you thought! Kim is next, I hope.


End file.
